Contemporary online marketplaces offer a wide variety of groups or types of items (including goods, services, information and/or media of any type or form) to customers who may be located in virtually any area of the globe, in any number of ways. Such items may be delivered to a fulfillment center, a warehouse or another facility operated by the online marketplace by one or more sellers, vendors, manufacturers or other sources. Upon the shipments' arrival, each of the items may be registered, such as by locating a standard identification number (e.g., a Stock Keeping Unit number, or SKU; a Universal Product Code, or UPC; or an International Article Number, or EAN) associated with each of the items, or assigning a custom identification number to each of the items, and storing an indication that each of the items has arrived based on its identification number in one or more data stores. Thereafter, the items may be associated with one or more product detail pages, and such pages may be made available to customers over the Internet. When a customer places an order for one or more of the items, the online marketplace may package the ordered items for delivery to the customer, process any necessary transactions, and arrange for the ordered items to be delivered to the customer.
In many instances, when a customer orders multiple items for delivery from an online marketplace, the multiple items may be delivered to the customer together in a common package. For example, where a customer is an avid golfer, he or she may order a new pair of golf shoes, a sleeve of new golf balls and a new putter from an online marketplace. In some scenarios, upon receiving an order for multiple items, a fulfillment center, a warehouse or another facility that is in possession of the items may bundle the items together at a preparation station, e.g., using tape, ribbons, bags, boxes, adhesives or other binding materials, and transfer the bundled items to a distribution station, e.g., on a conveyor, in a bin, or by any other means, where the bundled items may be deposited into a container with a sufficient amount and type of dunnage for shipping to a destination specified by the customer.
Commercial items are commonly identified by external markings provided on external surfaces of the items or their packaging. Some such markings include bar codes (e.g., one-dimensional or two-dimensional codes, such as “QR” codes), letters, numbers, symbols or other characters in any type or number of combinations. Where multiple items are bound in a bundle using one or more binding materials, the external markings (e.g., a SKU, a UPC, an EAN, or any other characters) on one or more of the items may be concealed or obscured by the binding materials or by other items, which may significantly complicate the identification and tracking of the bundle throughout a fulfillment center, a warehouse or another facility.
Moreover, while standard or custom identification numbers are commonly assigned to items, such numbers are not often assigned to bundles of items, for at least two reasons. First, bundles of items may be theoretically unlimited in number. Second, incorporating an identification number to a bundle of items, e.g., applying an adhesive label or tape including the identification number or any other characters or symbols or markings to the bundle, or affixing a radio frequency identification (or “RFID”) device or tag to the bundle, is logistically challenging and may require the bundle of items to be slowed or halted for a brief period of time, thereby inherently delaying the delivery of the bundle to the customer.